Crush on You

by Christie Ridgway

  “This is not my place, Alessandra. I’ve got a job, a life in L.A.”

  “But here you have family. The Bennett businesses, even Tanti Baci—”

  “No.”

  Her head was hurting again, her chest aching, and she didn’t understand why. “This place—”

  “Is beautiful,” he said softly. “But it’s not mine.”

  She kept coming back to the same thing, despite what he said. “You have brothers. You can’t go back and pretend you don’t know about them, that they’re not your flesh and blood.”

  “I told you I like them. And I’m sure a sentimental soul like yourself thinks it would be nice if we meshed into a family unit. Maybe for a moment I thought so, too. But the truth is, I don’t do ‘nice,’ Alessandra. My mother was ‘nice’ and look where that got her. I was ‘nice’ to Lana—” He broke off. “Let’s just say that in my personal dictionary, ‘nice’ is spelled c-h-u-m-p.”

  “Lana.” There it was, she decided, the source of all her aggravation. The vapid blonde and Penn’s passion for her—despite his ability to get passionate with Alessandra on occasion—made her want to break something.

  He crossed to the cardboard box at the front of the room and dumped the tool kit he’d used back inside. “Are you ready to go?”

  They were in his truck and almost home before she trusted her voice. The man was lovesick, and she was mad instead of understanding about it. What kind of . . . friend did that make her?

  “You don’t want to ever come back here because of Lana,” she said, bringing it out in the open as he braked in front of her farmhouse. “Seeing her here with Roger, it makes Tanti Baci the place where your heart was broken.”

  Silence reined in the dark cab. “Oh, God,” he finally groaned. “What a sap you are. Is that the silly story you’re telling yourself?”

  She bristled. “It’s not my fault you fell in love with the wrong woman.”

  There was another long silence, then he groaned again. “Jesus, Alessandra. You gotta use your head instead of your marshmallow heart, honey.”

  There it was again. Everyone always considering her a sentimental fool. If only they knew . . . She unlatched her seat belt, desperate to get away from him now. She shouldn’t be around him anymore. “Never mind. I’m out of—”

  “No, you’re not.” In a sudden movement, he hauled her across the bench seat. “Not until we get this straight.”

  “Get what straight?” she said, trying to slide toward her door.

  He groaned again. His voice lowered. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”

  Alessandra froze. Telling her what? Telling her what? All evening she’d been wishing herself away from him. Now, nothing could make her leave.

  I can’t believe I’m telling you this. The words echoed in Penn’s head. He shouldn’t tell her anything because that might lead to the one thing she could never know.

  “Never mind,” he said, removing his hand from her arm and nudging her toward the passenger door.

  She sat unmoving on the seat beside him, her thigh two inches from his. “Never mind? You’re kidding me. You can’t say that.”

  “I just did.”

  He would have laughed at the way she flounced on the seat, except she ended up closer to his side. The full fabric of her skirt brushed over his leg and a long lock of her flower-scented hair clung to his shirt sleeve.

  “It’s one of the first rules of sibling-hood,” Alessandra replied. “Maybe you don’t know it, since you grew up as an only child. But the fact is, you can’t start to tell something and then renege.”

  “I’m not your sibling,” he pointed out, “so your little rule doesn’t apply.”

  “The Bennetts grew up next door to us,” she countered. “Our families have been partners for a hundred years. You’re almost like my brother.”

  He choked on that.

  She thumped him between the shoulder blades. “See? It’s not healthy to hold things back.”

  God, he loved her. He was never going to get to have her, and he was going to miss like hell how she made him laugh. Her fist was still pounding on him and he had to twist and reach back to enclose it in one of his own. “I like my lungs right where they are.”

  Alessandra’s hand in his felt so damn right. He touched his forehead to hers, driven by the need to touch her, to have of her what he could until he went away. Her stifled-sneeze response to good sex was still something to be overcome, after all.

  “Honey,” he said, and then kissed her nose, her mouth, each of her cheeks. “I just had a great idea. You’ve got nothing to do tonight, I’ve got nothing to do tonight . . .”

  “So you’ve got no excuse not to finish what you started to tell me.”

  Stubborn woman. He tried kissing it away, doing his best to be coaxing and not demanding.

  She was clutching his shoulders, but still not capitulating. “Penn—”

  “Think about it, my lady. When’s the next time an iterant tinker is going to arrive in the enchanted forest to fill all the holes”—she stiffened—“in your cookware? It could be a long time before another strong and silent type comes around to service you . . . I mean your castle.”

  Her eyes rolled. “You are ridiculous.”

  “But even after all your earlier sniping, you say that with fondness,” he pointed out, a finger tapping the end of her nose. “And don’t forget, there’s still those velvet handcuffs.”

  His mouth touched hers again. Sweet, with just a swipe of tongue against her lower lip. “We could play some very adult games with them.”

  Her breath hitched. That word, adult, always got her. An image filled his head: a big bed, a television, Alessandra, and an adult film. He had to haul in a deep breath to keep from hauling her into his arms. “Alessandra?”

  “Um . . .”

  Say yes.

  She was glancing up at him through her lashes, the little flirt. “Only if you tell me your secret.”

  His secret? God, no.

  “About Lana . . .” she started.

  He groaned, then a far off ringing phone startled them both. They looked around, Alessandra groping for her purse, Penn putting his hand over his pocket where his cell phone sat. Then she frowned.

  “It’s the house’s landline.” She was already sliding across the bench seat. “Nobody ever calls that anymore.”

  Of course he followed her inside. After all, it got him that much closer to her bed and those handcuffs. The wall phone in her old-fashioned kitchen had stopped ringing, but he didn’t mind, except that she was frowning again. And then looking annoyed at the cell phone she dug out of her purse. “I turned it off during your talk,” she said. “Maybe whoever called here left a message on my cell phone first.”

  “Let’s forget whoever called you,” he said. “Let’s forget about everything but us.” Of course there is no ‘us,’ he reminded himself, even as he took her in his arms.

  She didn’t seem to notice, because her attention was still focused on her cell. “Clare called a couple of times,” she said, then glanced at the big-faced school clock hanging across the room. “It’s not too late.”

  “It’s much too late,” Penn murmured, shuffling her toward the staircase.

  This is when that chemistry thing was such a boon. He could read the objections and reservations on her face, but he could distract her from them by trailing his fingertip across her cheek. Sucking on her bottom lip. Caressing the small of her back as they ascended the stairs.

  And the gods were smiling on him, because those furry handcuffs were tossed on the antique ash dresser she had angled in one corner of her room. He snagged them as he slow-danced her toward the bed, her mouth going soft under his.

  Pressing her to the mattress, he dropped them between the pillows. She looked up at him through slumberous eyes. So dark, and their exotic tilt made her look mysterious. Except she wasn’t. He knew her to her marrow.

  Alessandra Baci. The darling of Edenville. Tommy�
��s girl. The Nun of Napa, devoting herself to grief and one boy’s memory. It was all true, and remembering it made him feel as if someone was taking a log splitter to his chest. Still, Penn couldn’t take his gaze off her.

  She stretched luxuriously, her arms overhead. The movement lifted the frilly little shirt she was wearing, exposing a wedge of her golden-skinned belly. He went down on his knees beside the bed, distracting himself from the pain by placing a string of kisses from rib to rib.

  Wiggling, she laughed. “That tickles.”

  “It won’t when you’re naked.”

  She believed such outrageous things. Maybe it was part of her romantic soul. In any case, she let him undress her, until her clothes were flung aside and it was only Alessandra, bare, on the white sheets.

  His heart seized.

  Her phone rang, a distinctive tune. The Star Trek theme.

  “Clare,” Alessandra said, her head rolling toward her cell, lying on the bedside table beside her purse.

  “I should—”

  She yelped as he yanked her by the ankles, down to the edge of the mattress. He went back to his position on the floor and then used his fingers to open her for his mouth.

  She yelped again, sweeter now, because it was followed by a moaning sigh. Yeah. Yeah, this was the only conversation anyone needed to have tonight. The only truth he was willing to tell. His lips to her heart.

  He held her hips in his hands. God, if women knew how much a man loved to feel them tremble in excitement, to taste the arousal that was the result of the strokes of his tongue and fingers, they’d know how much power they held in their palms and in their mouths, and in their—

  “Penn,” she whispered, and her hips moved against the shackles of his hands. “Penn.”

  Oh, baby. She came, subdued as always. As he slid up her boneless form, he shoved away his frustration and only murmured “Gesundheit,” on the way to her mouth.

  But she was satisfyingly pliant as she watched him undress through half-lidded eyes. Sated, but still interested. He came down on one elbow, kissing her again. Her hands tunneled through his hair, slid down his shoulders, stroked along one arm, from bicep to wrist.

  He settled on his back and she obligingly moved on top, kissing more. Her hands caressed his chest, his other arm, her fingers stroking the cup of his palm. That touch went straight to his cock. He groaned, but kept still, letting her kiss him until he had to run his hand along her back to her ass—but he couldn’t. Stilling, he tipped up his chin. “Damn it,” he said, staring at the cuffs that she’d attached to his wrists and to the headboard.

  She smiled at him, all cat-with-cream. “My turn.”

  Then she drew her tongue down his chest. A wave of heat traveled over his skin to meet her wet stroke and he closed his eyes. She blew a cooling breath along the path, and more blistering heat rushed over him.

  “Alessandra?” His eyes opened. Oh, God, oh, God.

  She was positioned over his erection, gaze on his face, her tongue poised to taste. She licked him.

  Killed him.

  He groaned as she blew another delicate breath along the wet line she’d created. Then she did the whole thing again . . . and drew away. He tugged at the cuffs to no avail. “Mean,” he managed out of his dry mouth.

  But not for long, because soon she was back, the ends of her hair tickling his groin as her mouth explored with teasing strokes and tiny licks. Her hands fondled his balls and he felt them tighten, draw close to his body and her sweet, wet mouth.

  When she sucked on him, his fisted hands flexed in reflexive response. Velcro tore. His arms came free of the cuffs. She giggled.

  He loved the sound.

  God, he loved her so much.

  “Get ready for retribution, sweet thing,” he said.

  She obligingly fell flat on her back and he donned a condom with jerky movements. He crawled onto her body, cradling her beautiful face in his palms.

  A wave of emotion came over him. He swallowed, his muscles tensing. This wasn’t right. His body pulled away from hers. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this,” he said slowly.

  “What?” She arched a brow. “Now? You’re going to finally finish that conversation now?”

  “Yeah.” Because it seemed wrong, a kind of betrayal, to come inside her, while knowing she thought he cared for another woman. “I’m not in love with Lana, okay?” There. Shit. That wasn’t so bad. That wasn’t the bad part. The stupid, foolish Penn part. “I was never even close to being in love with her.”

  “Oh.” Alessandra, the perverse creature, looked disappointed.

  “That’s a problem for you?”

  “Well, it means I didn’t need to dislike her after all. I was all ready to discourage Roger—”

  “You should still discourage Roger.” His jaw tightened. “She’s a con, a cheat, a grifter, okay?” Disgusted with himself and the situation, he started to move off the bed, but she wrapped her arms around him, and that embrace was stronger than any handcuff.

  “What are you saying?”

  “I met her through the show. She was a participant’s sister-in-law. We went out a couple of times, true, but it wasn’t love that brought us together. She had a sob story, okay? A story that I swallowed whole. I let her move into my pool house, I introduced her to people in the business, and then one day . . .”

  She raised up on her elbows. “One day?”

  “I came home to find she’d disappeared—but first she’d cleaned out what she could, including a household bank account that had an easy-to-guess password.”

  He sighed. After that, why not the rest? He explained he hadn’t called the cops because he’d wanted to put the incident behind him. Never had he anticipated she’d show up in Napa, on Roger’s arm.

  “And you didn’t tell him right away because—” He saw the knowledge dawn in her eyes. “Because you thought it might jeopardize the winery’s Wedding Fever publicity.”

  Her eyes closed. Then she drew him down and kissed him again, luscious, sweet . . . and salty. The flavor of her tears.

  “Alessandra . . .”

  “Shh,” she said. Then she was kissing him some more, languorous, long exchanges. Her tongue rubbed slowly against his, her body undulated, her bare flesh pressing close to leaving indelible marks etched onto his skin. He rolled to his back, sinking into the mattress as he sank into her taste.

  Then she was up on her knees, taking him inside her. This was languorous, too, not the near-frantic slaking that his body had clamored for the times before. This was a long ride to shore, on the perfect wave with the sun beating down and the day more perfect than any one known before.

  Alessandra was moving, moaning, and he caressed her pretty breasts and pinched her nipples as her volume increased. This was her show, and he let her set the pace, even as he felt that inevitable tug on his senses. He wasn’t going to last.

  But she broke first, her body shaking, her pelvis grinding, her passion sounding—loud!—in the room. “Penn!”

  Triumph rose from his heart to his throat, he wanted to shout, too, to take a victory lap with his fist in the air, but then his own release crashed over him.

  He came to himself minutes later, with his body beached on her sheets, his hands and legs wide, the Nun of Napa curled at his side. He rolled his head to kiss the top of her head. She returned a drowsy sound. “You nearly took the roof off, young lady,” he said.

  She made another little noise and burrowed her cheek on his chest. That beating organ inside of it tumbled. How had this happened? he asked himself.

  How had Penn Bennett, who just months ago had been made fool of by another woman, been fool enough to fall in love with a beauty known far and wide as the Nun of Napa? She wasn’t starchy or sinless, however. Instead it was worse. She was sweet and hot and such a to-the-marrow romantic that she would content herself to live on dreams of what couldn’t be for the rest of her life.

  Damn that legendary love story, the wedding wine, those bride-a
nd-groom cake toppers. No wonder she was so sentimental. Starry-eyed to the soul.

  Roll all that together with the ghost of Saint Tommy, and Penn didn’t stand a chance.

  Yet still . . .

  “I can’t believe I’m telling you this,” he heard himself whisper. He had no idea if she was sentient, or if sleep had already taken her away.

  “Alessandra.” He kissed her head again, and then the thing he’d never meant to feel, let alone say, he freed from his heart. “Alessandra Baci, I love you.”

  18

  By morning, Alessandra had forgiven Penn for that tossed off “I love you.” He was from L.A., right? Hollywood. He couldn’t know how his formulaic response to what they’d shared in her bed had bothered her. He was from the kingdom of air kisses and forty-two-hour marriages, wasn’t he? When he said the word love, he probably meant the L-U-V kind and she counted herself lucky that he’d refrained from adding a “babe” at the end of the phrase.

  But that was how he’d meant it, she decided as she stomped around the kitchen making coffee. She should have responded in kind. “Sure, sure, luv you, too, babe.” She tried it out in an airy tone.

  “Are you talking to me?”

  With a jerky movement, she swung around to face him. He propped his shoulder against the doorjamb, wholly comfortable in damp hair, no shirt, jeans, and bare feet. A look that made her wholly uncomfortable.

  She plucked at the lapel of her fuzzy robe. “It’s a little warm in here, isn’t it?”

  His smile grew slowly, as if he knew exactly what—who—was the source of all her heat. The rat. His naked feet took him closer to her, and her pulse sped up.

  “Maybe we should get you out of all these”—fingering the fabric belt tied around her waist, he focused on the pink figures cavorting about the pale blue plush and his smile widened—“flamingoes?”

  Embarrassment crawled over her skin. She’d never spent an entire night with a man in her bed. After jolting awake, she’d raced to the shower and then raced downstairs in her usual morning-wear while he was still sleeping. She didn’t have any fancy negligees, just her scruffy slippers and her fuzzy flamingoes.